The Hunting of Thin
by Mystic25
Summary: Something dark is stalking children; Sam and Dean investigate. T for language, violence and imagery.
1. Chapter 1

"The Hunting of Thin."

Mystic25

Summary: Something dark is stalking children; Sam and Dean investigate. T for language, violence and imagery.

Rating: T for what I just said.

A/N: This is my Halloween Fic. Dedicated to Soncricia whom I told about it first. Apologies for the lame summary.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

"_Come little children, the times come to play,_

_Here in my garden of shadows."_

~"Hocus Pocus"

**xxxxxXxxxx**

* * *

"_Jessica!"_

Thomas's voice echoed through the concrete drain pipe that had been transformed into a playground toy. He crawled through the narrow space, managing to scrape his knees even through his jeans. "Jessica! Wait!" The end of the tunnel seemed super far away, and he was already sorry that he left the smaller kiddie playground to try and follow his eight-year-old sister to the bigger one.

A circle of sunlight was just a few handful of reaches away and he crawled faster.

A dark shadow jumped down into the small bit of light and a wailing screech blasted at him.

Thomas screamed and fell backwards, scraping his hands and his knees again.

The figure started laughing, the darkness gave way to a pink tutu and fairy wings. "Scardy cat, scardy cat! You're so scared and pumpkin fat!"

"I wasn't scared!" Thomas insisted, reaching out his foot to kick his sister in the face with the heel of his red sneaker.

"Yeah you were baby!" His sister Jessica mocked him.

Thomas shoved past her and onto a crunching of bright orange leaves and into the crisp October evening air. The sun had started to set, turning the sky a fiery orange outlined with inky blue.

"It's not even Halloween!" Thomas yelled to his sister who was staring at him with arms crossed over her chest, smiling smugly in her princess fairy costume she had gotten last week at Target.

"I'm wearing this to the parade at school tomorrow," Jessica said it like Thomas was too young to understand such important things.

The playground was a place of swings and slides and cedar chips, ringed with wood and surrounded by _woods_ that had yet to be developed by an overzealous population. Thick evergreen trees surrounded the playground and threw their long shadows over the orange leaves like fingers.

Thomas stared at the shadows by his feet like they were ghosts. "We better go home," He started to back away from the leaves. "It's almost dark-"

"What's your problem?" Jessica sounded too much like their older sister Meghan, who was 16 and rolled her eyes at _everything_, even when she gave their dog Brownie a bath. "You scared?"

"Mommy's going to be mad!" Thomas shouted back.

"_Mommy's going to be mad!"_ Jessica singsonged. "Is the wittle baby scared?" She laughed mockingly.

There was a little path of concrete that ran out past the metal playground to the smaller plastic constructed playground meant for the younger kids. The concrete walkway continued around some benches sitting a few yards away beside a cluster of oak trees where moms and dads sat and watched their kids play. There was only one other kid on the playground beside them. A woman in a white dress called out the little girl's name, and she hopped off the still spinning merry go round and walked down to where her mom was waiting by the bench. The girl took her mom's hand, and both left together, their feet crunched through the leaves on the ground.

"I'm not _scared!"_ Thomas yelled in retaliation to Jessica.

Jessica rolled her eyes at the annoyance of little brothers. She was still looking at the empty bench where the girl and the woman had just been because a squirrel was now darting along the back of the bench and she liked to watch squirrels play. It hopped along briskly, and her eyes followed the thing as it leapt to the ground and ran until it darted up the trunk of a nearby tree. She turned back around, and when she looked back, someone was there.

It was a man; he was standing in the shadows of the biggest of the oak trees a few yards away from the bench. He was almost hard to see because he was wearing a dark black suit and tie, and Jessica only saw him because his shirt was white and glowed like a lighting bug.

He was really tall and really skinny, and his neck looked as thin as a stick. He just stared straight ahead, watching them.

Jessica blinked, because she thought she was imagining it. Because it looked like the man had no face, no eyes, and no nothing. Just a blank oval on top of his body.

"Jessie, we got to go _home!"_ Thomas started yanking at her fairy wings.

"Ow!" Jessica yelped. "Thomas _let go!" _She whipped around and snatched her brother's hand from her wings.

She looked backwards over her shoulder and righted her wings on her back; and when she turned around again, the man was gone, like a magic trick.

Thomas stared at the place where she was looking. "What are you looking at sissy?"

"I thought I saw a man," Jessica returned, checking that the laurel of flowers was still on top of her head. She _really _loved her costume. "And don't call me '_sissy'_ that's a baby thing to say!" Her skirt was made of pink sparkly tulle and glittered in the setting sun.

Her costume was the only one left at the store, and was ugly until her mom and sewn the tulle around it. She was going to win the costume contest for _sure_ tomorrow. She spun around, letting the skirt flounce out, her ballerina slippers _crunch, crunching _on the leaves.

The world became a dizzyingly blur like how she saw things outside her car window when it was raining outside.

She stopped spinning when she spotted something black.

The man in the suit was now standing inside the playground circle, arms still down by his side. He was now standing right beside one of the streetlights that were turned on after it got too dark on the playground to see. The light stayed off now, even though the sun was almost down completely.

Jessica's eyes widened because she _hadn't _been imagining it-

The man had _no face._ Just a round oval head, he stood there like a thin wispy tree.

He was only a handful of steps away from them.

Thomas shrank back from the man, Jessica felt him grabbing a hold of her fairy wings, and this time she was too speechless to tell him to stop.

The streetlight suddenly popped on, then flickered back and forth like moths were flying inside it. Something long and snake like whipped out from behind the man's back, coming towards them.

Jessica screamed, high and piercing, she grabbed her little brother's wrist and dragged him with her over the cedar chips and down the sidewalk.

She didn't look back, just kept running, running, even when Thomas begged her to stop with heavy panting breaths.

She ran into something that grabbed her arm. She screamed louder.

"Jessie, what the hell?"

Meghan, her big sister stood there with her dyed multicolored hair, in a Fall Out Boy concert t-shirt and jeans, and no coat even though it was getting pretty cold outside.

"There's a man! He's going to _eat _us!" Thomas wailed, trying to jump on Meghan's back.

Meghan shrugged her little brother off of her. "Get off twerp!"

Their older sister raised her head up to the playground, which was empty, except for playground equipment and dry leaves. She looked at her younger siblings in accusation. "Very funny; Mom's been looking for you for like _forever!"_ Meghan grabbed Jessica's arm in one hand and Thomas' in the other. "Come on, I'm already going to be late for the Halloween party because of you baby brats!"

Jessica felt herself being tugged harshly by Meghan. She turned around and saw only the empty playground, but there was a glint of a reflection in the metal slide, of something thin and black.

"Jessie, _let's go!"_ Meghan yanked on her arm harder, dragging her towards home.

* * *

**xxxxXxxx**

Jessica pushed the food around on her plate, even though chicken nugget sandwiches were her favorite thing ever; and her mom had cut them up to look like little pumpkins for Halloween, which was in two days.

"Jessie, honey you've barely touched your food," her mom stared at her in concern over her own plate.

"I'm not hungry," Jessica returned, she glanced up at the mullioned windows of their dining room. There were no curtains on the windows so the inky blackness of the night shown into the house.

"But it's your favorite," Her mom argued. "Are you feeling okay honey?"

"She's said she saw a man on the playground," Meghan returned like she was blowing a raspberry. She stabbed a chicken nugget with her fork, but didn't eat it because last week she had decided she was a vegetarian.

"I didn't!" Jessica snapped at her older sister. "Thomas did!"

"What man?" Their mom asked.

"He was _real!_" Thomas insisted from his bright red booster seat beside Meghan. "He was a ghost, he wore all black and had no face!"

"You two are seriously demented!" Meghan retorted.

"Hey!" Their father snapped in his no nonsense voice that would always shut them up, at least the youngest two. Meghan considered herself above such things as 'parental authority.' "That's enough!"

"He _was_ real!" Jessica returned despite her father's warning to stop. "He didn't have a face and he had octopus arms!-"

"I said that's _enough!"_ Their dad banged his napkin down on the table audibly with his fist. The table shook, one of Meghan's chicken nuggets bounced off her plate and dropped to the floor with a plop. Brownie the Basset Hound was on it in a snorted second.

Their dad picked up his sandwich, resting his elbows on the table, staring at all of them. "Halloween's in a few days guys, and I think you're letting it go to your heads."

"But daddy!-"

"Jessie, you're father's right," Their mom cut Jessica off. "There's no such things as ghosts. Halloween is a fun thing to play with, but none of it is real, okay? So no more scaring each other, am I understood?" She glanced at all three of her children, and when none of them answered she repeated her words: "I said, _am I understood?"_

Both Jessica and Thomas said: 'yes ma'am," Meghan rolled her eyes but shook her head in agreement, stabbing another nugget right in between its pumpkin eyes, muttering: '_losers'_ under her breath.

It was a school night, so after dinner Jessica and Thomas both had their baths and were in bed by 8:30. The youngest kids shared a room, and Thomas was snoring away in his own bed with the Batman blanket half an hour after his parents tucked them in.

The door to their bedroom creaked open slowly.

Jessica sat up, but couldn't see who it was because the hallway light wasn't turned on.

She grabbed the pink flashlight by the bed with the sparklers attached to it that was a part of her costume and clicked it on. It didn't illuminate much, only a pinpoint of light a few inches in front of her.

"_Jessie."_

Jessica saw Meghan approach her in the small amount of moonlight that shone through the curtains, and the small amount of flashlight in her hands.

Something was in Meghan's hand, Jessica's light caught a sparkly reflection, like a diamond.

"_Jessica,"_ Meghan's voice sounded weird, like it did when she slept too long on the weekends. "_He told me to do it, I don't want to-"_

Jessica sat up more and clicked on her little Princess table lamp.

Meghan stood at the end of her bed in flannel boxers and a white tank top, their mom's butcher knife clutched tightly in her hand. Her eyes looked like someone else was home besides her. "_But he told me I had to-" _Meghan looked Jessica dead in the face and raised the knife.

Jessica screamed, and kept screaming as Meghan took wild slashes at her with the knife.

Their dad burst into the room. "Meghan what are you doing?!"

"_I have to kill them! He said I have to kill them!" _Meghan screamed like it was a horror movie.

Their dad grabbed Meghan and she started slashing at _him_; the knife made _whooshing _sounds in the air.

"_Meghan!"_ Their dad tried to wrestle the knife out of Meghan's hands, but Meghan sliced a gash up his left arm making him cry out and release her.

"_David?"_ Their mom stepped through the door and screamed. Their dad's arm dripped blood onto the carpet.

Thomas was now awake and cowering under his blanket, his screaming muffled under Batman's face.

Meghan's grip suddenly went loose, then she stopped moving entirely. The lights flickered like they did in the park.

Their mom was calling for both Meghan and their dad who was holding tight to his bloody arm and wheezing in pain.

"_What's happening?" _ A pair of eyes peered out from Thomas' blanket; he didn't come out any more than that.

Something went '_scratch, scratch, scratch' _like branches against the window by Jessica's bed that had no trees outside it.

Jessica turned her head to the window.

And saw the skinny man from the playground standing right outside it, scratching a sharp thin white finger to the glass, like he was trying to find a way through.

"_Mommy…"_

Jessica finally got her mother's attention. She wrapping her shirt around their dad's arm, but looked up to the window when Jessica stared at it.

And Jessica knew her mom saw the man too, because her eyes became perfect _'O''s_ and she screamed just as all the lights went out in the house and the man vanished from the window.


	2. Chapter 2

The house was made of clap boards painted a sunny yellow with green shutters, surrounded by a gabled fence of white wrought iron. It was on a street with similar type of houses, the kind that people would call "cute" and "charming" and take pictures of it to put in glossy paged real estate and garden magazines. But the windows of the house stared up at Sam like broken eyes, even in the full light of day the darkness permeated out and gave him chills. He'd been doing this type of thing for too many years to not recognize the signs of something supernatural lurking behind such a seemingly normal type of façade.

The Impala door closing made him turn in time to see Dean buttoning up his black suit jacket. The air for Indiana had turned cold, the impending winter already claiming its territory. It blew through Sam's hair in such a flourished way that he knew that Dean would comment on it in a heartbeat.

He was right.

"Dude," Dean fell in line behind his little brother as they ascended the five wooden steps that lead up the porch. "You need a haircut, like five years ago."

"Shut up," Sam responded. He walked to the front door, pulled back the white framed screen, rapping twice with his hand on the green painted wood.

A collection of bright autumn leaves in a woven wicker basket sat right in the way of Dean's foot path so that he kicked it just as he reached the door. Dean looked down at the basket with a raised eyebrow, picking it up a second later. He tipped it sideways and a spilling of blood red leaves poured out onto his shoes. One of them, Dean held in his hand, feeling its distinct man made qualities. "Who places _plastic_ leaves outside?" Dean slapped the leaf back inside the basket and dropped the basket back down on the porch. "Tell you what man, Martha Stewart is _ruining_ nature."

Sam turned to his brother with a quizzical look on his face. "Dean, how do you know so much about Martha Stewart?"

Dean looked at his brother for a beat, then said just as quickly: "Shut up."

The front door finally opened; an attractive, if not bedraggled middle aged woman stood there. Her long blonde hair was braided in one single braid down her back that frayed like untwining rope from her head, and her clothes were gray and looked slept in, dotted with blood at the seams.

Dean took all of this in. "Samantha Harlow?"

At the sound of her name, the woman seemed to deflate like the air being let out of a balloon. "Yes?" She wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hand.

"We're with the FBI," Dean said, pulling out his fake FBI badge as Sam did the same beside him. "I'm Agent Startsee," this my partner, Agent Hutch"

"Startsee and Hutch?" Samantha Harlow dredged up a laugh somewhere inside her disheveled state. "FBI Agents with a sense of humor?"

"No Ma'am, we at the FBI do not have a sense of humor that we are aware of," Sam delivered with his straight laced, no, nonsense stare.

Samantha Harlow dug at her eyes again, this time with a fisted hand like a toddler who had been denied a nap. A chunk of hair fell loose in front of her face. "It's been a long night, driving back and forth between here and the hospital. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude-"

"It's okay ma'am, we know this is a difficult time. We just have a few questions concerning what happened here last night." Sam swept in with his calming doe eyed stare and Mrs. Samantha Harlow sighed in exhaustion.

"Please, come in." She stepped back from the door, moving at a shuffle down the foyer in gray socked feet.

"Thank you." Dean pocketed his ID and stepped over the threshold. Right before he managed to follow her, Sam took his arm.

"Dude, _Starksy and Hutch?_ You running out of ideas for names?"

"You're one to talk _Men In Black." _

Both of them shut up after that and followed Samantha Harlow into the recesses of her house.

The house had an inside that matched its outside. Wall to wall dark pumpkin colored paint, cream colored crown molding everywhere, and furniture in a hue that looked like someone had dumped gallons of bourbon over them. A coffee table was covered in squash gourds with candles inside. Some of the gourds had carved Jack O'Latern faces, smiling they were happy with what had happened when it had gone dark the previous night.

Samantha Harlow disappeared into another room, leaving Dean and Sam to stand beside the cluttered coffee table. Dean made a face at the gourds making faces at him. Sam cleared his throat at Dean's attempt at a Jack O Lantern face. Dean turned to him like: _what? _ Sam gestured for him to sit on the couch that had a hand knitted afghan done up like autumn leaves folded over the back of it.

"Dude, what is it with this woman and leaves?" Dean asked. "Is her husband a Pagan God or something?"

"Dean, focus," Sam unbuttoned his suit jacket and took a seat on the couch.

"Fine," Dean sat down next to Sam. Down an opened entranceway in what Dean presumed was a kitchen, Samantha Harlow clanked dishes around. He flicked his gaze to the other side of the living room, down a hallway, where a door was opened to reveal part of a bed, the covers thrown off, and the remnants of crime scene tape broken and hanging by the door like discarded party streamers.

"I'm telling you what Sammy," Dean said. "This case is a _gold mine._ It's been a while since we had a good old fashion ghost haunt to deal with."

"I don't know man," Sam returned while trying to get his 6'4" frame comfortable on a surface that was two feet too short for it. Needless to say, it didn't work. "This doesn't seem like a ghost to me."

Dean shot Sam a look like had said something insane. "A dark spirit tracks two kids on a playground yesterday afternoon, and that night the teenage daughter of the clan goes all _Carrie_ on her father. You're right Sam, that's not a ghost – that's perfectly normal suburban behavior."

Sam opened his mouth to retort to his brother, but Samantha Harlow finally emerged from her kitchen. She was carrying a wooden tray with three white ceramic coffee mugs and a plate of some fancy looking cookies in the shapes of autumn leaves.

"I'm sorry that took so long," Samantha set the tray down on the coffee table, managing not to disturb the squash gourds there. "Cooking is a way to distract myself from-" She broke off and glanced down the hallway at the silent bedroom.

"We understand," Dean reassured her, taking a coffee mug when she offered it to him, waving away a leaf cookie in the same gesture.

"It's just a few questions Mrs. Harlow," Sam fell in step with Dean's words, saying a quick 'thank you' when a cup was handed to him.

Samantha Harlow took a seat across from the couch in a burgundy colored high backed chair. She picked up the last cup on the tray and held onto so tightly it looked like she was three seconds away from snapping the handle off. She sipped with a tight mouth, teeth clinking on the edge of the cup.

Dean saw her hands shaking from where he was sitting. "According to the police report, you and your husband came into your children's room at midnight, and that's when you're oldest daughter attacked your husband with a butcher knife-"

"It wasn't Meghan!" Samantha Harlow's voice was shrill. She looked at both Sam and Dean like they thought she was crazy. "I mean, it was her, but it didn't-" She looked down at her coffee cup, taking a bracing sounding breath, then whipped her head back up to them. "Ever since Meghan became a teenager she's been rebelling, but she'd _never_ attack her father, or her brother and sister! It was like she was _possessed,"_ Samantha sounded like the utterance of the words would have her committed to an asylum. "I know I sound like a crazy person, but the way Meghan looked last night when she," a stifled sob came from the woman's mouth. "When she was attacking my husband. It wasn't my daughter doing those things, the things she shouted, and what I saw-"

Sam's brows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean what you saw?"

"Jessica, my youngest daughter, she came home the other day saying that she saw a strange man on the playground watching her and her brother Thomas. It's so close to Halloween, I thought that they were all just trying to scare each other," Samantha sighed like she wanted to faint but resisted given the fact that she was the last parent still standing in her home. But then her sigh seemed to be sucked back up into her mouth like a vortex and her eyes blinked up in a terrified gaze. "But then last night, I _saw_ what Jessica was talking about."

"What did it look like?" Dean asked.

"It was a man, tall and thin dressed all in black. He was scratching at the window like he wanted to get inside. The next thing I know, Meghan was on the floor, not moving and my husband was bleeding. Then, all the lights broke in house-" Samantha's face became a contortion of pain, she set a hand to her face. "I'm sorry-"

"It's okay," Sam handed her the napkins she had given him.

Samantha took them and wiped at her eyes. "I didn't tell the police because I didn't want them to think I was crazy. The hospital already has Meghan on a psych hold. If told anyone about what I saw they might take my children away from me."

"Trust me when I say we're going to make sure that _no one_ takes your children away from you," Dean said.

Samantha raised her eyes to him, now dripping with tears she tried to blot out with the white paper napkin. Dean glanced over at Sam and Sam returned his gaze.

Samantha Harlow shook her head. She glanced down at her silver banded bracelet watch. "I need to get back to the hospital." She dropped the napkin on top of the cookies and stood up in a flurry of movement, wiping at her eyes with both hands.

"We just need to have a look in Jessica and Thomas' bedroom before we go." Dean stood up a few seconds after she did, so did Sam.

"My husband is having surgery in an hour, to repair the damage to his arm." Samantha started pushing her hair back with the flat of her hand like she was just now noticing the state of her appearance." I need to be there-"

"We won't keep you," Sam reassured. "You can leave us your spare key, and we'll get it back to you at the hospital. I promise."

Samantha relented under Sam's unwavering '_trust me'_ gaze. Dean had yet to meet a woman who was immune to it. Samantha gestured with her arm in the direction of her kids' bedroom.

"Thank you," Sam returned. He started down the short hallway; Dean right behind him.

The bedroom had two beds each at opposite sides of the room. One was bright pink with a Disney Princess motif and full of pink fuzzy pillows. The other was its polar opposite, dark black frame, a batman blanket half slung onto the ground, next to a darkened puddle of dried blood.

Sam stepped over to the puddle, but only glanced down at it briefly before moving to the window. The window was mullioned with a sheer white curtain that sat open. Long jagged scratches ran in a diagonal line across the square panes, like it had been scratched by fingernails.

"Something was definitely here," Sam tapped the back of a knuckle against window making Dean raise his head up from examining the dried blood stain on the wooden floor.

Sam set a hand to the wooden window pane, pulling back and examining his clean fingertips. "No sulfur."

"Scaring kids is a bit too low on the pay grade for Crowley's henchmen." Dean rose to his feet and took out his electronic EMF monitor, clicking it on. The needle on the meter didn't move at all.

The silence echoed across the room as Sam clicked his own EMF monitor on.

Dean stared at the non-readout that was as inactive as Geiger counter in a pit fill of plastic silverware. "No ghost either apparently."

"So what the hell are we looking for then?" Sam asked.

"Damned if I know," Dean pounded his EMF monitor on the white bedside table next to Jessica's bed like that would make the needle jump. "You know this thing might be broken," He beat the side of the monitor with the flat of his hand. "I knew I should've brought my old Walkman monitor."

"You still _have_ that Walkman?" Sam asked incredulously.

"It's a classic Sam," Dean insisted. "Do you know how much a think could go for on eBay?"

"I'm guessing zero, since you made it yourself."

"You know nothing," Dean retorted to Sam's somewhat superior smirk. "So mom says the daughter just went nuts, started dicing at dad and the kids like it was a slasher movie." He glanced back down at the EMF monitor whose needle was still dead. "Maybe we're looking at a ghost possession, something strong enough to manipulate the meters?"

"_What_ ghost do we know can do that?_" _ Sam shot back.

"It's a _theory, _Sam," Dean insisted. "You got any, feel free to throw down."

"According to the police report Meghan said she doesn't remember anything that happened after they had dinner last night." Sam returned, recalling what he read in the report he had gotten over the secure internet line a few hours ago.

"Winner winner chicken dinner." Dean returned with a bit of a smile.

"Yeah, but also according to the police report there was nothing resembling ectoplasm on Meghan in the hospital," Sam glanced over at the disarray in the room. "And there's nothing in _here_ either, also no EMF readings, whatsoever-"

"So mom cleaned up in here, and the hospital staff cleaned up what they thought was a bunch of dirt from the kid, and the ghost manipulated the readings-"

"Dude, _not a thing!" _ Sam insisted. "And Samantha Harlow cleaned up in here, and left blood stained covers and crime scene tape?" Sam cocked an eyebrow at Dean.

"If it looks like a ghost and kills like a ghost Sammy then most likely it's what we got." At Sam's exasperated sigh Dean added: "What?"

"It's not a ghost Dean," Sam cut off. "Even without the zero EMF reading; I'm not getting that kind of vibe."

Dean was looking at him with a halfcocked gaze. "_That kind of vibe?_ Dude, do you hear yourself-?" His gaze intensified. "You know maybe we shouldn't have taken this case so soon-" He watched Sam shoot him a petulant kind of look. "It's only been a few months since you got knocked out in the church, maybe you should dial it back and let me handle this one-"

"I'm fine Dean," Sam cut him off. "One day of being unconscious doesn't make me an invalid, I still have _instinct_."

The silence that came from Dean was as heavy as the secret he'd been carrying around for months. It felt like he had a lead ball into his stomach. "Sam-"

"Here," Samantha Harlow stepped into the room, dressed now in jeans a brown cable knit sweater over a clean gray t-shirt. A dark brown leather satchel purse was slung over her shoulder. Her keys were in her hand, and she held out one free of the ring to them. "I'll be in the ICU at St. Vincent's, just leave the key with one of the nurses."

"Thank you," Sam took the key from her. "I'm very sorry about your family Mrs. Harlow."

Samantha Harlow gave a tight lipped smile, her hand gripping firmly to her purse strap as she exited the bedroom. The sounds of her heeled boots clicked on the hardwood floor, and Dean listened to them go quiet before he addressed his brother again:

"Alright Mr. Instinct, I'm going to canvas the neighbors, see if they heard anything about the freakish nightmare last night." He pulled the keys to the Impala from his jacket pocket and handed them to Sam. "Why don't you go visit the girl in the hospital? Get the story straight from the horse's mouth."

"That's a good idea," Sam agreed. "I'll circle back here after I'm done."

"And Sam, don't be afraid to utilize ICU." Dean said. "You know, in case you develop palpations after you find out that this _is,_ in fact, a ghost."

Sam shot Dean a glare worked into a scowl, snatching the keys from him and walking off down the hall.

"Just a suggestion," Dean calledd to Sam's retreating back.

"Eat me Dean," Sam returned before he disappeared down the hallway.

* * *

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

St. Vincent's hospital was a sprawling type of place. Ten stories high with maze like hallways that could easily trap people inside for days looking for the exits. Monitors beeped loudly, and hospital grade antiseptic was pungent up Sam's nose as he made his way to the psychiatric unit that sat at the end of the very long hallway.

A set of reinforced double doors greeted Sam as he finally reached the hospital's psychiatric unit. A man with a dark brown receding hairline, dressed in ceil blue scrubs sat behind a desk covered in computer monitors running a close looped security feed of the ward.

Sam tapped on the two inch thick Plexiglas that separated him from the man.

The man looked up from his monitors and took stock of Sam standing there. "Can I help you?"

Sam took out his fake FBI badge and pressed it flat against the glass. "I'm here to see a patient; Meghan Harlow; she was brought in here last night."

The man, who Sam assumed was a nurse, or a low key security guard, checked over his badge. He slid a clipboard filled with curled pages and a pen attached to it by a ball chain out through an opening at the bottom of the Plexiglas. "Sign in, date, badge number." Something whirred on a machine behind him and a minute later a white plastic badge with the words: _Visitor, _and the date and time was slid out through the same slot as the clipboard. "I'm also going to need a copy of your badge."

"Yeah sure," Sam folded up his badge and slid it through the little slot. He took the visitor's badge and affixed it to the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

"Harlow you said?" The man clicked on the keyboard of the computer directly in front of him.

"Yeah," Sam returned. "Meghan, 16."

"Kinda young to be in here," the man said it like it was idle chit chatter as he searched through the patient database. "I tell you, they're coming up crazier earlier and earlier nowadays, too much Instagraming and processed meat –Here we go Harlow, Meghan, room F223. All the way straight back down the hallway, then hang a right, third door down."

"Thanks," Sam said, taking his badge back after the guy slid it out the little slot at him.

"Sign out on your way back." The man said, already turning back to his monitors like Sam was a passing after thought.

Sam cleared his throat and the sound was drowned out a second later by the noise of the double doors being released from a mechanical lock. They swung inward and Sam stepped through them.

The hallway was white, blindingly white, like someone had cleaned the entire place with pure bleach. It was a maze of doors and nurses stations every few feet. Patients in hospital gowns, bathrobes and bare feet milled around talking in groups like the hallways of a high school before classes started. A girl with dark choppy hair danced around with an IV pole like it was a ball room dance partner, humming _Shall We Dance_ tunelessly.

A nurse sat in a station directly across from the dancing girl, and seemed to be taking notes on her behavior.

Ten feet down or so, the hallway split into a Day Room, complete with hanging ferns and a wooden table where two men in flannel bathrobes sat playing Battle Ship while a third man watched, shouting out: "_Sink him, SINK HIM!" _ The man banged on the table top and overturned the game boards. A nurse in the same ceil blue scrubs as the man outside rushed over to them and tried to pull him away. She shouted for some more help when the man started yelling: _Fuck you, FUCK YOU HARD!" _ He was soon enveloped by a barrage of burley muscled men, still cursing.

Sam had spent more time than he would care to admit in hospital psych wards. And they all had a 'sameness' to them. The patients wandering aimlessly. The Day Room that was supposed to add a sense of normalcy to things, but really just made things more awkward and strange.

Sam passed the Day Room and bumped into a man, and for one insane moment it looked like _Lucifer. _Given where Sam was, his mind was no doubt playing tricks on him. The man in the flannel bathrobe looked him up and down and said a slow: "Hey_ baby."_

Sam shook off the bizarre creepiness of that feeling and continued down the hallway until it ended, feeling the man's eyes on him until he made a right and found the third door down opened.

Meghan Harlow sat up in the hospital bed in a white shirt and white draw string pants. Her hair was cut into short choppy layers that were a myriad of purples, reds, and bright yellows, so that the back of her head looked like an abstract painting done in Day Glo Spray paint. She stared out a large window that overlooked the hospital atrium six stories down.

"Meghan?" Sam knocked on the opened door.

Meghan jumped at the sound and jerked around. Her eyes were vividly green and vividly startled.

"Sorry," Sam held up his hands as he stepped inside the hospital room. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Meghan turned in the bed, her eyes tracked Sam as he entered the room like he might attack her. "Who are you?"

Sam took out his badge and showed it to her. "I'm with the FBI, I'm here to ask you a few questions about what happened last night."

Sam's question seemed to be a trigger point for Meghan. Her breathing grew hard, and her eyes turned from startled to hostile. "How many times do I have to _tell_ you people? I don't _remember _anything that happened!"

"Whoa, hey, it's okay," Sam held his hands up again. "Look I know what you went through was rough, but if you remember _anything_, anything at all, it could really help us piece together what happened."

"All I remember is eating dinner, and the next thing I know, I'm on the floor with a bloody knife beside me and my little brother screaming "You slashed daddy!'" Meghan sat in the middle of the bed, drawing her knees up to her chest. "What else do you want me to say?"

Sam approached her cautiously like she was a horse that might spook. He sat down in a wooden visitor's chair across from the bed. "Before dinner, what were you doing? Your mom mentioned something about your younger brother and sister seeing someone on the playground?"

Meghan drew her knees up even higher to her chest. "Mom had to cook her stupid chicken nugget dinner, so she told me to get the little brats from the playground." There was no harshness in her words, instead there was an edged, cagey sound to her voice. "Jessie practically steam rolled me when I got there, kept babbling about seeing a man on the playground."

"Did you see what he looked like?" Sam asked.

Meghan raised her head from her knees, a steel piercing moving downward with her eyebrows. "I didn't see anything, the place was empty. But Jessie and Thomas both, they freaked all during dinner about a man with no face trying to eat them and other crazy shit like that." Meghan reached up to scratch her piercing and laughed, but it sounded forced.

The kind of forced Sam hand heard from countless other people, including himself, when they were trying to hide something. "Meghan," Sam stood up from the chair and stepped as softly as his 6'4" frame would allow. He sat down on the edge of the bed. "What is it?"

Meghan laughed again, she started to drum chipped black painted nails against her knees. "You'll just tell the doctors and they'll never let me go home."

"I promise I won't say anything to them," Sam reassured. "Believe me, I've heard worse."

Meghan raised her eyes up to him, she folded her legs down in a cross legged position. "After dinner, I went to my room to Skype with my boyfriend Tanner. But when we were talking I kept hearing something, this, voice _whispering-_I told Tanner to quit dicking around, but he said that he wasn't _doing_ anything-"

"What did the voice say?" Sam asked.

"It said_ 'Kill the children'. Over _and _over_ again. And I felt like," Meghan eyes went cold scared. "Like something was trying to take over my brain, like a puppet. I don't even remember leaving my _room_, but the next thing I know I'm lying on the floor in Jessie and Thomas' room by all this blood, and everyone is _screaming-"_

"Did you see anything strange, like black smoke, or smell anything that smelled like sulfur?" Sam asked her.

Meghan stared at him like he had grown a second head that was green and covered in rainbow freckles. "What? No! Dude, I'm in this freak show hospital, but I'm not _crazy!"_

"Sorry, you're right," Sam said by way of placating the girl while mentally checking off the 'No Demons' box in his brain. He stood up from the bed and pulled a business card out of his pocket. "I'm going to leave this with you, if you remember _anything_ else, call me." He set the card on the blanket beside her knee and started to leave, but Meghan's voice halted him.

"I'm not crazy, right?"

Sam turned back and saw the scared form of a 16-year-old girl that pushed through despite how she tried to cover it up.

"You're not crazy Meghan," Sam returned. "I promise."

His words didn't seem to make Meghan feel any better. As he left, her eyes turned once again to the window like she was watching for someone.


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out that both the younger Harlow children were staying with their neighbors across the street while their father underwent surgery.

The neighbors were an older couple who welcomed Dean into their 'parlor' covered in wall to wall shabby chic floral furniture with his second cup of coffee of the day.

Both kids were sitting on the floor by the coffee table, a 64 pack of Crayola crayons spilled out in front of them, coloring on blank pieces of computer paper.

Their neighbor, a Mrs. Langston watched them, notes of sympathy visibly playing their way across her face. "Poor things." She turned her eyes up to Dean. "What happened to them was just _tragic."_

"And you didn't hear anything?" Dean questioned.

"Both Emma and I wear hearing aids," Mr. Langston said from where he sat beside his wife on the sofa. "We normally turn them down when we go to bed, to save the batteries." His face fell into guilty look and leaned closer to where Dean sat in a chair, lowering his voice. "We only woke up when we saw all the sirens at the house, after-" he broke off when his wife cut him a look, glancing down at the two children coloring on the floor.

Dean's gaze shifted to them as well.

Thomas was coloring a swirling spiral with a green crayon across two pieces of paper that were laid out side by side from each other. Jessica sat in a side sitting position next to her brother, coloring in an actual picture that she had drawn.

Dean cocked his head and leant forward to Jessica. "That looks good."

"It's the man I saw on the playground," Jessica said, not looking up from her drawing. She picked up a black crayon and started to color with it.

Dean leant forward even more, his hand hovered over the paper. "You mind if I take a look?"

Jessica set down the crayon and held up the paper to Dean who took it from her.

On the paper was a crayoned drawing of a skinny man in a black suit with snake-like projections coming out from behind his back. A streetlight was drawn above him with a broken bulb.

"Where are his eyes?" Dean stared at the blank oval that was the man's head.

"He didn't have any," Jessica returned. "I don't know how he kept following me with no eyes."

Dean lowered the drawing and stared at the little girl. "What are you talking about sweetheart?"

Jessica crawled up on her knees and pointed to a green set of scribbles behind the man she drew. "When I first saw him, he was by those big tall trees, but then he was under the big light, here." She tapped on the streetlamp in her drawing. "I don't know how he walked there so fast."

"What was he doing?" Dean asked the girl gently so he wouldn't freak her out.

"He was staring at me, with his whole head-"

"He chased us!" Thomas spoke up from behind his sister, now on his knees like her.

"He chased you?" Dean questioned, turning his attention to the little boy.

Thomas nodded his head like a bobble head toll that had been set in motion. "He broke the lamp, and Jessie grabbed my arm and we ran away; that's when Meghan got us." Thomas' voice stalled out and he sat back on his butt on the floor.

Mrs. Langston set a hand on Thomas' back. "It's alright sweetheart."

Jessica scooted closer to her brother and handed him a purple crayon. Thomas took it and added to his green scribbles on the paper.

Dean turned back to Jessica, holding out her drawing. "Do you mind if I keep this for a little while?"

Jessica nodded, but didn't look back up to Dean.

* * *

**xxxxxXxxxx**

Dean walked down the Langston's porch steps when he saw his car come to a stop in front of the house. Mrs. Langston watched from behind her white laced curtains. She eyed Dean in kind of a freaked out way after he asked to keep Jessica's drawing of the suited man.

He climbed into the passenger seat of the Impala.

"Hey," Dean turned to Sam. "So did you find out anything noteworthy from Lizzie Borden?"

"She said she didn't remember attacking her family-" Sam pulled the car off from the curb.

"So says _every _crazy we've ever met," Dean returned.

"But get this," Sam turned to Dean. "She claims that she heard whispering ordering her to 'kill the children' before it all went down. Says at first she thought it was her boyfriend-" He glanced back to the road.

"Which would be one of the _weirdest_ teen relationship kinks ever if that were true," Dean said, removing the drawing from his suit jacket pocket.

Sam turned his head at the sound of the thick computer paper crinkling, eyeing the drawing. "What is that?"

"The Harlow's youngest daughter drew it," Dean unfolded it more so that it almost seemed like the crayoned drawing of the man emerged out of the creases of the paper. "She says that she saw this man on the playground, and little brother Thomas claims it chased them."

"That's the same thing Meghan told me," Sam said. "She said that both her brother and sister freaked during dinner about a man who chased them on the playground."

"And we're absolutely _sure_ this isn't a demon attack?" Dean eyed the picture again. "The cheap suit, the possessed killings, it all points to it."

"You were in the Harlow's house too Dean," Sam said. "There was no trace of sulfur, and Meghan doesn't remember smelling anything weird or seeing any black smoke before she blacked out. And you were right before; Crowley isn't going to waste any foot soldiers possessing kids in Suburbia Indiana."

"So no demons," Dean said. "And you're instinct _against_ instinct swears that this isn't a ghost," Dean ignored the rolled eye look Sam gave him.

"Dude," Sam started.

"I know, I know," Dean cut him off. "No EMF, blah, blah blahblah. So basically we know everything about what this thing _isn't-"_

Sam stared at the drawing like it was something more complex than crayoned lines on construction paper. "And I think I might have an idea about what it is."

Dean gave him a look, and Sam returned it.

* * *

**xxxxXxxxx**

The hotel they were staying in wasn't the nicest of places. Mustard yellow walls offset a sea foam green comforter horribly on the only bed in the room. Dean had clearly asked for two single beds. But the older woman with the blue hair at the front desk kept dropping less than subtle innuendos about him and Sam, wagging her eyebrows above bejeweled cat's eyes glasses at them until they got weirded out and left.

Dean's duffle bag was on the bed, opened like a monster that digested and regurgitated clothes. Sam's bag was thrown into a rickety wooden chair beside an elongated window that actually possessed a view of a copse of oak trees in a dazzling display of autumn oranges, yellows, and reds in the dying light of an amber setting sun.

Dean paced in front of his brother who was sitting at the only table in the only other remaining wooden chair typing away on his black laptop, totally oblivious to the view outside.

Dean wasn't a nature freak by any means, but the view outside the window actually made him stop and take notice. They had lived in so many shitty places growing up that being able to see something that _wasn't_ a gray color because of mold was few and far between.

Sam's fingers pounding furiously on his keyboard broke into Dean's attempt at tranquility. "Alright, enough Binging, Steve Jobs, Whatcha got?" Dean dug into a white paper bag lined in grease with the words: _Buddy's Big Burgers_ on it. He pulled out his Quadruple Bypass Burger with extra fried onions and stared with lust in his eyes.

Sam swiveled the screen of his laptop around so Dean could view the webpage he had pulled up. "The Slender Man."

Dean paused midway through a jaw dislocating bite of his hamburger, nearly spitting half masticated beef all over himself. "The _Slender Man?_" Dean swallowed thickly. "You mean the creepy suit wearing, First Person Horror Gamming, Wikipedia dump zone Slender Man? Dude that's not even a _real thing_! It was just created by some cyber hugging nerd who had a hard on for Hitchcock movies."

"But there _are_ actual legends about him," Sam argued. He scrolled down the screen, showing Dean a wood carving of a skeletal man thrusting a spear into a soldier dressed in armor. "Back in 17th century Germany there were stories about Der Großmann_', _a black faierie who trapped bad kids in the forest and would stalk them until they confessed whatever they did wrong that day to their parents."

"So like Zombie Mr. Rodgers?" Dean questioned around another mouthful of his burger.

Sam did a double take _'what?'_ look at Dean before clicking back through his computer screen. "Dude, just _no-"_

"You know, this is just starting to sound like a _Tulpa,"_ Dean set his burger down on its grease filled wrapping paper wiping his hands audibly against each other.

"I thought that too," Sam agreed. "But Tulpas are born out of the collective consciousness of a group Dean, these were just two kids on a playground. And judging by their reactions I say the idea of the Slender Man never even crossed their mind before two days ago. Which leaves about zero chance that it sprang up from their imagination."

"So the Slender Man is real," Dean cut in; Sam nodded at him. "Awesome." He wrapped up his remaining burger much to Sam's raised eyebrow look. "Alright, you start canvasing the lore, see if there's a way to kill this thing that doesn't involve extra points on Xbox Live_-"_ Dean grabbed his cellphone out of his suit jacket pocket. "I'm going to call the local PD, see if there are any other reports of kids trying to slash apart their families."

* * *

**xxxxxxXxxxxx**

Meghan ran her fingers along the edges of the FBI agent's business card. If she wasn't on lock down in the crazy house she would have appreciated that Agent Hutch was shockingly hot and looked _very _well stacked beneath his cheap suit.

A light knock on the open door raised Megan's head up from the card she was flipping over and over like a gambler with a hot domino.

A nurse in light blue scrubs entered the room with a metal tray with two little paper cups and a larger one filled with water. "It's time for your medication," The nurses' white sneakers squeaked when she walked and her blonde ponytail bobbed in time with the noise. As she approached the bed she eyed the card in Meghan's hand. "Whatcha got there?"

"Nothing," Meghan quickly stashed the card in her pants pocket, hoping that the nurse didn't take it from her. When she had regained consciousness in the ER downstairs she had heard voices of doctors and nurses throwing around words like "24 hour hold" and "psych ward." She had been given some strong kind of drug up her arm that burned and made her feel like she had gotten both drunk and high at the same time. She had come back around when felt a nurse trying to remove the piercing from her eyebrow.

She was told later by the hospital shrink that she had screamed so loudly that the nurses were told to back off, and just "watch her for symptoms of using it." Like she would find a way to inflict any kind of damage on herself with a piece of metal the size of a fingernail.

Megan raised her bare feet back up on the bed and crossed her legs underneath her. She eyed the two paper cups filled with pills the color of primary crayons, two flat red ones, two bright blue ones, and one tan oblong one. "What are those?"

"Just mild sedatives," The nurse said in that way medical professionals did that placated the patient while at the same time telling them to shut up and take their medicine.

Megan picked on one of the paper cups and the two pills inside tapped against each other. "Why do I need so many things to help me relax? Why not just knock me out if you don't trust me to be awake?"

"Nobody said that honey," The nurse couldn't be any more than 6-years-older than Meghan, but she was speaking to her like she was a third grader. "These won't make you sleepy," she held out the other pill cup and the water cup. "They're just something to help you relax."

The nurse all but shoved the pills at Meghan like she had a million other things to do rather than try and argue with a delusional teenager.

Meghan sighed and took the pills from her, not looking her in her superior eye as she swallowed the medicine. She refused the water the nurse held out expectantly.

"Tongue out," the nurse ordered.

Meghan opened her mouth and let the nurse see that she had indeed, swallowed the pills and hadn't pocketed them. "Do you know how my dad is?"

When Meghan raised her eyes to the nurse she looked a bit affronted, like it was wrong of Meghan to ask such a question, considering what had happened. Meghan wasn't above agreeing with that look, but still, it was her _dad._

"I can check if you want," The nurse threw her that bone, stacking the empty pill cups inside each other like nesting dolls. "Would you like that?"

Meghan nodded trying not to roll her eyes at the woman's way of talking down to her because she was pretty sure that it might get something stronger than those little pills shot up her. She glanced around her prison to the window that looked out over an inside garden of tall green trees and white flowers that she didn't know the names of. An IV pole sat unused next to the window, Meghan could see that the chord was unplugged, bundled up by the pole's three legs. But when she glanced back up at the box where she presumed that the medicine went in on the IV, it was lit up red like the face reading of a digital clock. But the numbers on the display were wrong, like box had a short and only showed parts of numbers, forming a word:

'_KILL'_

Meghan blinked, the drugs in her system must've been kicking in. But when her eyes opened again, there was something else there. A man stood by the window, as skinny as the IV pole, dressed in a suit, with no face, blank head looking right at her.

Meghan jumped and started backing up against the bed like a crab.

"Meghan?" the nurse set down her tray, stepping over to Meghan's left shoulder. "What?" The nurse glanced at the spot the teen was looking at and saw nothing there out of the ordinary.

The IV box blinked like it had been shorted, and the word: _KILL _was replaced by another phrase:

_OR DIE_

The man in the suit raised an arm at Meghan, the fingers were long and thin and spindly.

Meghan screamed, banging against the oxygen hook up on the wall behind her head.

"Meghan!" A woman with auburn hair in a lab coat entered the room. The hospital psychiatrist approached her, grabbing her shoulders which made Meghan jerk like she'd been electrocuted. "Meghan; look at me!" The doctor grabbed both her shoulders. "What's going on?"

Meghan felt like her chest was about to explode and send her heart in a spatter on the bed. She couldn't control her breathing. The skinny man by the window vanished like a magic trick, making the light recessed in the ceiling above the window pop audibly.

Both the nurse and the doctor jumped at the noise as sparks rained down on them.

"What the hell was that?" The nurse glanced around the room.

"Looks like a fuse blew," the doctor returned, glancing up at the darkened area, then back down at Meghan.

Meghan stared at the empty space by the bed, afraid that the man might return at any moment.

"Meghan," The psychiatrist was named Dr. Jamison, and she was talking to her again, but was unable to get a response. "Meghan?" Dr. Jamison glanced over to the nurse. "Has she already had her medication?"

"Like a minute ago," the nurse responded. "Do you want Ativan?"

"Let's give the meds she took a chance to work before we send her into a hazed coma Brenda," Dr. Jamison returned, a bit curtly. Brenda was decent nurse, but an overzealous one.

Brenda gave Dr. Jamison as hard of a glare as she dared and stormed out of the room.

"Meghan," Dr. Jamison tried again to get the teen's attention. Meghan's eyes kept darting around the room like she was following a bat that was trying to swoop down on her from the roof. "Listen to me, there's _nothing _here."

The doctor was talking to her, but Meghan could barely make out what she was saying. Her breathing was erratic and way too fast. She felt like she'd run around all the streets of her city without stopping. She stared at the empty area where the man had stood, she could still _see_ his feature less head boring into her.

The sound of rustling, like a dozen flapping wings of birds caught up in the rafters of a bell tower rattled her ear drums. She clawed at the side of her head, trying to block it out. Something warm and sticky coated her fingers.

Dr. Jamison suddenly screamed, Meghan had her arms forced away from her, and the noise seemed to _know_ that she was vulnerable. Because it morphed from flapping wings into the sounds of a dozen whispers speaking discordantly over each other:

_Kill them. Kill them._


	4. Chapter 4

Dean paced the length of the hotel room, the phone felt hot on his ear after being pressed there for the last twenty minutes. He ran a hand through the back of his short hair as he listened to the female officer that he was speaking too.

"Alright, yeah, believe me, we want to wrap up something this bad as much as you do." He shot a look at Sam when he said this. "Okay, thanks."

"What'd you find out?" Sam glanced up from over his laptop, his suit jacket was rolled up to his elbows and his black tie hung loosely on his neck below his dress shirt unbuttoned three buttons down.

"Well you might be right on this man."

"Meaning-?" Sam questioned.

"Meaning the Harlow's aren't the first case of kids going all _"Children of the Corn"_ on their families. Turns out the local PD had a case a few weeks before the Harlow's. Young boy, 8-years-old snuck into his little sister's room at night and tried cave the side of her head in with his whiffle bat. Police never pressed charges because the kid had Asperger's Syndrome. But according to the mom the boy had never had that violent of an outburst until them. That's not all," Dean dropped Sam's bag off the other chair and flipped it over, sitting down backwards in it, loosening his own tie like his brother. "There have been _five_ missing children's reports in the last month, all in this area. All the kids were found, a few days later, in the woods, all had some version of a story about a skinny suit following them-"

"Wait," Sam pulled back from his laptop and started at Dean with a cock of his head. "So they were all kidnapped _together_?"

Dean shook his head, brushing aside his balled up paper napkins that smelled like meat. "Kids were separate for each one of the snatchings-"

"But they all saw the same thing; which means they were all _taken_ by the same thing-" Sam finished. He gave a huff. "So the Slender Man is _really_ real?" Sam had seen _hundreds_ of things that no one believed existed, he had killed more than his fair share of them. But the idea of something that was so- something like this_._ Some story that not even _Hunter _kids really believed was real-

"You called it Sammy," Dean leant back in the chair. "You find anything on how to gank this thing?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Unfortunately _too_ many things. The lore about this is so mainstream there's over a dozen ways they say you can put it down. One Wiki site even claims it's _unkillable."_

"Well that's completely _unhelpful,"_ Dean returned. "I tell ya man, Wiki sites are like a bunch of middle aged basement dwelling guys knitting hats together, nobody knows what the hell they're doing." Dean rubbed at his forehead with one hand like the whole idea exasperated him. "What else you pull up?"

"Another wiki site says iron will kill it-"

"_Another_ wiki site?" Dean looked up from his hands, incredulous.

"This thing is Internet Lore Dean," Sam returned. "It's not like there's a section for it the Library of Congress Data Base."

"What about the Men of Letters?" Dean insisted.

"Nothing." Sam answered. "The Letters don't have Internet databases, but I have yet to come across anything resembling a Slender Man in the archives."

"Then what's the point of you sleeping in the library like a speed bump all night every night?" Dean insisted.

"Hey man, if we gank this thing successfully we can add it to the library okay?" Sam returned. He scrolled down on the black screen of the wiki page of the Slender Man that he was currently looking at. Most of it was just a bunch of crap written no doubt by a bunch of drunk college guys bored on a Saturday night. "Here's something that says using the bone of its last victim to form a blade and stabbing it does the trick-"

"This thing's last victims are all _kids_ and _alive_ Sam," Dean argued. "We've done some crazy shit in our day, but we're not ripping some poor kid's femur out to sharpen into a bowie knife."

"You're not getting any arguments from me man," Sam agreed holding out his hands.

"So iron rounds it is then." Dean slapped his palm on the table top making it rattle an unhealthy amount, sending all the balled napkins he had used to the floor like snowballs.

Sam's phone rung where he set it on the table top. He checked the caller ID, not recognizing the number, but he answered it anyway: "Yeah," Sam paused. "Yeah, this is Agent Hutch-" His brow creased which in turn made Dean's brow crease. "I'll be right over." Sam hung up and looked over at Dean. "That was a doctor at St. Vincent's, apparently Meghan Harlow had a psychotic break in the hospital."

"Crazy Meghan?" Dean asked.

"Doc says she just went nuts-"

Dean stood up and snatched his suit jacket from off the back of the chair, taking his keys out of the left pocket. "Let's go."

Sam grabbed his own jacket and followed Dean out the motel door.

* * *

**xxxxxXxxxx**

Meghan Harlow was partially blocked from Sam's view as he reentered the room he had just been at two hours ago. Unlike before, she wasn't sitting up, because she was tied down in wrist restraints to the bed. A long roll of bandage was wrapped around her head like a helmet, obstructing her multi colored hair from view.

Sam stopped in front of the auburn haired woman in the lab coat that was observing Meghan in the room.

"Dr. Jamison?"

The woman turned when she heard her name being called.

Sam and Dean both pulled out their badges. "I'm Agent Hutch, we spoke on the phone." He nodded at Dean. "This is my partner Agent Starsee," Sam put away his badge and stared at Meghan who looked back at him with glazed eyes.

"Thank you for coming." Dr. Jamison said by way of greeting. She didn't shake their hands, her eyes on the girl in the bed. Dean got the distinct impression that she cared for her patients.

"You mind telling us what happened?" Dean asked her.

"I don't know," Dr. Jamison returned like it was a hard thing for her to admit as a medical professional. "I was making my rounds to see her, and she just started screaming."

"What happened to her head?" Dean stared at the thick bandages covering the girl's scalp like a football player's helmet.

"She did," Dr. Jamison responded, glancing at Meghan, but her look wasn't a cold one, more of a baffled one. Like how had a perfectly healthy teenager done something of that nature. "Dug at her own ears until they were ribbons of blood, it's why we had to restrain her."

"Did she say anything before?" Sam asked.

Dr. Jamison shook her head. "She wouldn't make eye contact, she kept glancing around room, like something was there."

"But you didn't see anything?" Dean questioned.

Dr. Jamison looked at him like she was about to size him up for a room of his own in the ward. "Meghan is suffering from paranoid delusions gentlemen. The things she sees, _we can't see_, it's all just in her head. It's a part of the psychosis."

There was a lapse of silence that settled over both Dean and Sam, because of the things they saw in their own heads.

"And you have yet to determine what triggered her break down?" Dean asked. His eyes shifted over to the kid in the bed. Her eyes were glassy, but not unfocused, like she was trying to break out of the hold the medications she had been given had on her.

Jamison shook her head again. "All her tests came back normal. Except for her EEG, there were a few high spikes on the left side of her brain. It's indicative of readings I've seen in long term schizophrenic patients. Meghan has no prior history of mental illness before two days ago, the fact that she's having brain wave activity like this doesn't make any _sense_."

"What about her dad?" Dean said.

"He came out of surgery okay," Dr. Jamison replied. "The orthopedist says he's going to have limited use of his arm for a while, but he should make a full recovery."

The bed started to creak audibly. Both Sam and Dean turned and saw Meghan struggling in the restraints; her breathing audible from where they stood.

"Meghan," Dr. Jamison walked over to the bed, setting a hand on one of Meghan's restrained wrists. Meghan jerked harshly at the contact. "It's okay-"

"Do you mind if we talk to Meghan alone?" Sam questioned, knowing it wasn't going to sit well with the doctor. And he was right because she stared at him with hardened eyes, like he had asked something obscene.

"She's on some heavy sedatives Agent, anything she says won't hold up in any report you're writing."

"None of this will make it to the official report Dr. Jamison," Dean insisted. "A man was stabbed in the dead of night, and a girl went nuts all in the span of 48 hours. We just want to find out why, same as you."

"Okay," Dr. Jamison backed off from the bed. "I'll be waiting down the hall at the nurses' station. You two," she looked at them both with penetrating gazes. "Find me, if _anything_ else happens." She walked away with the flaps of her lab coat billowing out behind her like wings.

Meghan continued to writhe on the bed in agitation.

"Meghan," Sam stepped closer to the bed with slow deliberate steps. Meghan's eyes tracked him the entire time, her breathing started to ratchet up like a roller coaster ascending up a hill on a track. "_You!-"_

The portable EKG monitor she was hooked up on began to alarm in a series of loud ringing beeps.

"Whoa, whoa, easy kid," Dean stepped in front of her, hands raised. He glanced back at the door. If Dr. Jamison heard the noise and came back inside, they'd be escorted out by security and would have no chance at getting Intel from Meghan. "Look, I know this is all freaking you out, and I'm blaming you. But you need to calm down and tell us what you saw-"

Meghan began shaking her head frantically; her breathing was now a constant terrified wheeze. "Him." She said _him,_ in the same note that was used to talk about demons and particular vengeful poltergeists.

Dean pulled out his smart phone, and showed Meghan the original image of the Slender Man done in 2009 by the aid of a photo manipulation. "Did he look like this?"

Meghan backed up in the bed, getting tangled up in the restraints tying her down. "He's angry-"

The long halogen light overhead popped and sparked, raining down sparks on them. Meghan gasped a scream like a terrified cat. "He's going to kill me! He said so, I didn't do what he asked!-"

The alarm monitor popped and sparked like the light, arching a dangerous spray of sparks onto the bed, some of them singing the hospital blanket.

Sam's looked at Meghan. "Meghan is he here?"

Meghan didn't respond for a count of two seconds, but then her eyes dropped to a look of pure, raw, fear, and she mewled, staring at what she saw behind her in absolute terror. "_He is now_-"

Sam and Dean turned at the same moment.

And came face to face with a thin tall slender man, with an oval head, and no features. The man's hands were straight down at his side. Something black and looming sprang up from behind his back, long tentacle like projections flying straight at them with a demented '_hiss'_ of a sound.

"Son-of-a-!" Dean drew his gun at the same time Sam did. But before either of them could get a shot off, the skinny figure vanished in a haze of black vapor.

This time _all_ the electrical equipment in the room began to go haywire; monitors blaring, and sparking. An empty IV pole by the bed sparked so badly that the door shot off of it right at Meghan's head.

Sam grabbed the girl's neck and slammed her down onto the bed before the hard plastic could decapitate her. The door whizzed by her like an axe blade that had missed her neck by millimeters, impaling itself on the opposite wall.

Meghan was now completely freaking out, she struggled to free her arms from the restraints.

"Sam!" Dean tossed his pocket knife to Sam.

Sam caught it and cut through the restraints on Meghan's arms; as soon as she was free he lifted her up off the bed. Her bare feet felt like ice even through his pants.

"Go, go!" Dean pushed Sam ahead of him out the door, sweeping his gun in an arch around the room.

Dr. Jamison was, true to her word, waiting for them in the hallway. Sam nearly collided with her when he barreled out of the room. "What's going on?" She stared at Meghan. "What are you doing to her?!"

"We're saving her life," Sam returned. "You need to evacuate all the patients on this floor!"

"What for?" Jamison insisted, standing her ground, the heels of her black pumps almost puncturing the ground. "This is _my_ ward gentlemen, and I need you to explain what the _hell_ is going on!"

"Look Doc, we don't have time for explanations," Dean barked. "You listen to him and get everyone out, _now!"_

Dr. Jamison eyed the gun in Dean's hand, then Sam's black Taraus that was hanging freely from his hand, and Meghan practically clawed her way up his neck. "I'm calling security!-"

Dean made a move to grab her arm, but before he could all the lights overhead in the hallway blew out, enveloping them in darkness.

All hospitals were equipped with emergency floodlights, but only one came on, right over the nurses' station where a woman in bare feet and a dirty blue robe sat with her hands over her ears screaming with a high screech. Other patients picked up the noise, their screams echoing off the darkened air.

Dr. Jamison didn't know which way to turn her head, her auburn hair moved in the darkness like a diminishing flame. "What the hell was that?"

"That's the reason you're not calling security," Dean retorted in the almost complete darkness. He aimed his gun through air. Patients screamed, a man with Albert Einstein white hair held up his hands, saying: "_No no, I don't want to go down with the boat!"_

"What floor is the surgery department on?" Dean barked.

"Fifth," Dr. Jamison returned, sounding completely stunned. "Why?"

Dean didn't answer her and turned to Sam. "Stay with the girl, things start guitiolling people again, get her the hell out! "

"Dean what are you doing?" Sam still had a tight grip on Meghan, who was almost choke holding his neck like Sam was standing directly over a lava pit and any false move would send them both to their deaths.

"It's after the kids, Sam," Dean answered. "This thing gets inside people's heads, turns them into to psycho kill bot factories-"

"Then why did it leave?" Sam questioned. The patients screaming was a constant hum of discordant screeches behind him. "Meghan didn't complete the task that it wanted."

"I'm not exactly versed in _Slender Man _Sammy, but my guess is it's pissed at her for not listening, and wants to complete the job itself. Which only means one thing-"

"The other two kids are in the building." Sam finished. He eyed his brother in only the way he could. "Dean, you're not going in there without back up!"

"I'm not Sam," Dean returned glancing down at Meghan, who stared at the darkness with wide terrified blown eyes both from the drugs and from absolute fear. "You're going to stay here, in case the thing decides to double back and go after the girl."

"Dean-" Sam's voice was quiet, but pissed off. He was no longer the kid brother, completely green and new at hunting. He wasn't about to just let Dean track a monster they'd never even _faced_ before alone.

"If I'm not back in 15 minutes, you and the Doc trip the fire alarm and get the patients out."

Dean moved down the hallway, gun out and drawn, Sam's thundering echo of: "_Dean!" _ trailing after him in the murky darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

The hallways on the surgical floor were almost blindingly bright after the darkness of the psych ward. Paisley colored walls and brown linoleum floor blurred past Dean like a maze.

Opened doorways revealed patients hooked up to ventilators with people siting vigil in the chairs beside them. Heart monitors beeped like the entire floor had one giant heartbeat. Nurses in dark red scrubs and doctors with clipped haircuts moved past Dean, not noticing him, or noticing him too much when he bumped into them and was on the receiving end of their scowled looks and cries of '_watch it!'_ One white painted nurse's station became two, then three. Finally one of the doorways revealed the pink sweater and black leggings of Jessica Harlow sitting in a chair two sizes too big for her.

Dean walked towards the room, the glass doors that separated it from the others opened with a 'hiss' of air.

A man that Dean knew was David Harlow lay in the bed, hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV bag of medication. Samantha Harlow sat beside her husband in a chair pulled right up to the bed. Her son Thomas was in her lap, an opened copy of Hop on Pop spread out in front of him, but he paid no attention to it.

"Mrs. Harlow-"

Samantha Harlow turned. Her eyes became wide at the sight of Dean standing in the doorway, almost like she had forgotten about their having talked earlier. "Agent Starsee – did your partner give you my key?"

"Ah, no" Dean stepped inside the room, the doors remained open behind him. They must have been on a track operated by a nurse at the station behind him, allowing them to control how long they stayed open. "Look there's no time to do this delicately, so I'm just gonna say it. Your children are in danger."

Samantha stared at him like he was crazy. "What are you talking about?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but you're just going to have to trust me on this okay? Something's after them, you need to get them out of here-"

"It's the man," Jessica Harlow sat up dead straight in her chair, her brown eyes went wide in fear. "He came after us!"

"He's going to eat us!" Thomas screamed, the book fell out of his lap and hit the floor with a thud.

Samantha drew Thomas to her body like Dean was the thing to be afraid of. "You are _scaring_ my children Agent!" Even with her loud voice, David Harlow remained under the effects of the sedation from his surgery and didn't move, the beeping of the monitors by his bed the only indication that he was present in the room at all.

Samantha Harlow stared coldly up at Dean. "_You_ need to get out, _now!_ Or I'm calling security!_"_

"Do I look like I'm lying about this?!" Dean argued. Normally he would try and be a little more subtle with a woman sitting with her young children waiting for her husband to wake up, but he didn't have that luxury. He had _no_ idea how the Slender Man was able to travel, or how fast, which made it a very dangerous threat. "That thing, you said you saw at your house," Dean watched Samantha Harlow's eyes widen, like she was remembering a nightmare that she didn't want to recall. "The man at the window, he's _real, _and he's _here, _and he wants your kids."

The lights in the room cut off completely, enveloping them in almost a pitch darkness save for the glow of the medical monitors around the bed.

"Hey!" A nurse shouted at the station across from room. "What's going on in there?" She started towards the room, but the door slammed shut with a harsh, rattling: 'bang.' The nurse pounded on the glass, and ran over to push the button that was just under the lip of her desk, but it didn't work. She yelled for her colleagues to help her.

"Mommy, I'm scared!" Thomas clawed his way up his mother's body.

"It's okay," Samantha grabbed her son up to her, trying to sound comforting, even though her voice sounded totally terrified to Dean. "It's going to be okay," she kissed him. "Jessica," Samantha called for her daughter in the darkness. "Baby, come here, by mommy, okay?" She waved her over. "Come where I can see you."

Jessica stood up from the chair, the wood shifted with a squeak.

A thin, bone white hand popped out of the darkness and set itself on Jessica's shoulder. She screamed. The hand gripped harder with spindled fingers, and her scream became louder.

"Jessica!" Samantha Harlow screamed for her daughter.

Dean fired a shot, made from pure iron that he smelted the day before by melting down an old iron crowbar. He shot in the blackness, a manic hiss erupted like a thousand snakes rearing back all at once. He grabbed the girl's arm and yanked her away, into the arms of her mother who snatched her up with a terrified cry.

Something large and looming and blacker than the darkness blew through air. And the bone white, eyeless, featureless face of the _Slender Man_ came into view like he was back lit from behind. His suit was all black and his red tie dripped down him like blood; wind blew from him hot and stale, and rancid smelling. Giant tentacles like an octopus shot out from behind his back, reaching for the two kids, who screamed and tried to hide behind their mom.

Dean moved in front of Samantha Harlow and her children, firing more rounds. They pinged off the flailing tentacles, winging off them like metal, sparking off the bed.

Dean ducked down from the bullets, one of the Slender Man's tentacles whipping by his ear. He raised his gun, taking aim at the glass door. He shot it full of holes, managing barely to go in between the legs of nurses and doctors who were all trying to get into the room, pounding furiously on the glass.

The glass shattered apart and sprayed the floor in dust. The nurses closest to the door backed up with startled cries.

Dean hauled Samantha Harlow to her feet' Thomas clutched furiously to his mother's body. "_Go!"_

"I can't leave my husband!" Samantha screamed, staring at the still form of David, who had yet to wake even with all the horrendous noise and violence in the room.

The Slender Man had no face, no way to _watch_ anyone. But Dean could feel its expression through its expressionless. Whatever kept David Harlow from waking, it had something to do with it.

"I'll get your husband!" Dean lied as boldly as he was able, too; he needed to get them out of there. He scooped up Jessica from where she was covering her face with her arms on the floor and thrust her at Samantha. "Go!"

Samantha snatched up her daughter's weight in the free arm, bundling her children like coats, and fled through the shattered glass. A nurse reached out and grabbed Jessica from her and ran with her away from the room.

"_Kill him…"_

Dean dropped to the ground, hands over his ears at the sound of a whisper that was _scratching_ into his head, tearing an insurmountable pain through him.

"_Kill the younger one."_

Dean freed one hand from his ear, and was nearly blinded by the pain of hearing the Slender Man's voice in full capacity. It was the sound of a million high pitched voices all molded into one screeching sound. He drew his gun up, aiming at the suited chest. "I'm not doing any of your leg work you no eyed zombie freak!"

"_Dean!"_ Sam's voice came around from the corner, his brother's form emerging through the doorway. Behind Sam, Dean could see Meghan Harlow in bare feet, being pulled along by Dr. Jamison. Samantha Harlow cried out for her daughter, grabbing her arms and yanking her to her.

Sam ran over the broken glass on long legs, his Taraus drawn.

"_Then I'll will."_

The scratching whisper morphed into clicks like a night of cicadas had become trapped inside that single room. A tentacle shot out wrapping around Sam's neck in a choke hold, dragging him inside and pinning him up against the wall, right next to the it's faceless oval head.

"Sam!" Dean aimed his gun at the Slender Man's chest, but the thing was smarter than that. It raised Sam's body up against it like a shield, so Dean couldn't get in a clean shot without hitting his brother. Sam's hands were up by his throat trying to pull the tentacle off of his neck.

"_I am darkness-"_ The Slender Man rose Sam's legs up off the floor and the clicking whispering was now nothing compared to the sound of Sam gasping for every breath he took. _"I am to be obeyed."_

Sam's eyes were glazed and his skin was almost completely grey. He gasped a sound that that sounded like Dean's name.

"_He is mine now." _Another tentacle shot out and wrapped itself over the other one around Sam's neck. Sam didn't even have enough air to gasp again, his eyes rolled up in his head, his arms dropped to his side. "_They all are."_

"Never-" Dean fired, a wild shot, that went high, but it hit the shadowed edge of the tentacle. The Slender Man drew back with a wailed screech. Dean fired again, hitting another tentacle. The thing rose high into the air, but not before dropping Sam to the floor where he landed in a boneless heap by curling black smoke where the Slender Man's feet had once been.

The smoke billowed higher and higher and the Slender Man rose like a ghost. Dean took one last aim, right at its oval empty face. "Go back to whatever hell you were dreamt up from, bitch!" The bullet hit right in the center of the oval, and the Slender Man's scream was hard and terrifying; the blackness he was made up of blew outwards and down.

Dean sprinted in an almost inhuman run, grabbing Sam under the armpits and dragging his limp form across the tile to the edge of David Harlow's hospital bed. He threw himself over Sam as the wall of black mist exploded around them.


	6. Chapter 6

The blackness cleared like evaporating fog, and the lights flickered back on like the power returning after a particularly bad thunderstorm. David Harlow was making moaning noises in the bed, weakly calling his wife's name. Dean pulled up off of Sam, who lay completely still, unmoving, face waxen and pale.

"Sam?" Dean slapped his face, a hand under his nose revealed him to not breathing; a thick trail of blood wrung his neck.

"Damnit!" Dean closed his fingers over Sam's nose and puffed twice into his brother's mouth. He puffed again when nothing happened.

Dean continued CPR, his mind an angry buzz as to why Zeke had remained silent inside of Sam, and not intervened. What was the fucking point of an angel if it didn't do its job? "Don't you do this Sammy, c'mon!" He sealed his mouth over Sam's again.

Sam suddenly lurched up in a gasp, eyes flying open. His hands immediately went up in front of him in defense.

"Whoa, whoa Sam!" Dean gripped Sam's arms. "You with me?"

Sam blinked like it took great effort to do so, he coughed a tremendous gurgle sounding cough, but he was breathing. "Dean-"

Dean pulled back and grabbed Sam's arm, hauling him to a sitting position. Sam choked on breaths, grabbing painfully at his neck.

Dean ripped into a pack of rolled gauze that sat on a metal tray beside David Harlow's bedside. "Easy, hang on." He moved Sam's hand away and wound the gauze thickly around Sam's neck so it looked like he was wrapped in a scarf. Dean kept his hand on Sam's neck to apply more pressure because he had no idea how deeply the tentacles had cut into Sam's skin.

The room looked like a blast site, shards of glass were strewn around like snow, medical equipment thrown in broken pieces on the floor, some of it still sparking dangerously.

And in the middle of it all was a giant solid black scorch mark that fingered outwards in concentric rings.

Sam looked around at all the debris, with disbelief. "Dean," Talking burned his throat like fire. "What the _hell-?_"

Dean looked where his brother was looking, at the chaos of the room. People were beginning to come inside, including Dr. Jamison who looked like she stepped through a wind tunnel, slashes of blood bled through the right arm of her coat, but besides that she looked unhurt. Meghan Harlow stepped around the edges of the glass in bare feet, eyes wide in shock, bandages hanging loose off her face like a hat with ear flaps.

Dean turned back to his brother. "I freakin' don't know man."

* * *

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

They left the hospital until almost two hours later. Dr. Jamison had changed her tune about calling security on them after she stepped inside David Harlow's room, the shock remained on her face the entire time.

Sam told Dean that the Slender Man had appeared right after he had left, like it knew they had split up. It had slashed at the doctor's arm with its thin fingers, trying to get to Meghan. Sam had fired one round, but it had vanished. He had left Jamison with the iron bladed switch blade from his boot, and had gone after Dean.

Dr. Jamison oversaw moving David Harlow into a new room, with a thick bandage wound around her arm, and more than a fair amount of blood on her lab coat. David Harlow had awakened, to the relief of his wife, who looked completely shell shocked with the rest of her children.

Jamison wouldn't let Sam leave until one of her colleagues properly dressed his neck, which required a full 45 minutes and a line of 15 stitches. She wanted him admitted for observation of secondary asphyxiation, but Sam refused and he and Dean snuck out while Jamison was on the phone with her superiors trying to explain what the hell had gone on.

Dean had returned to the motel only long enough to collect their bags, and then proceeded to drive like a speed demon the seven hours it took to reach the bunker in Lebanon from Indiana, having enough to do with this entire damn case.

Sam slept against the side door, the bandages against his neck stark in the darkness of the unlit road they were traveling on.

Dean kept finding reasons to nudge and bump into Sam, just so he would give little movements in return. Sam kicked him with his giant boots at one point, and despite the resulting pain to his ankle bone, Dean was satisfied his brother was still breathing.

Dean drove on another hour like this, with CCR blasting on the radio. The next time he glanced back at Sam he found him sitting up staring into the darkness.

"Sammy?" Dean questioned, Sam didn't look at him. "Hey man, you doing okay?"

Sam turned his head, and when he looked at Dean, the gaze wasn't Sam. It was older, more ancient. "Dean," the voice was low, with a rigidness that Sam didn't possess.

"_Zeke?"_ Dean's voice rose. "What the hell?" His voice was completely accusatory and completely angry. He turned off the radio. "Where were you? Sam nearly _died_ while you were MIA-it's your job to keep him safe!"

"I could not come out," Zeke spoke through Sam's voice, which still unnerved Dean. It was worse that talking to Sam with no Soul, because now Sam was _completely _unaware of what was going on.

"What the hell do you mean you couldn't come out?" Dean almost shrieked out. "You're a friggin' angel!-"

"That thing back there that you killed," Zeke/Sam spoke. "It is not of this world."

"No kidding, Columbo," Dean snapped. "I sort of figured that out with the whole mind control/ tentacle thing!"

"You misunderstand Dean," Zeke returned in a voice that was so ancient that Dean believed if Sam were conscious to hear it, he would've crumbled to dust. "In your human world, in the mountains of Tibet, there is a being that resides there called a _Tulpa; _a thought form born out of human consciousness-"

"I know what a Tulpa is, Zeke," Dean blinked away the night like it was a coating of tears on his lashes. "And trust me, this thing was _nothing _like that-"

"This _creature_, Dean, is of the same concept. But it is born from the thoughts of demons. It is the creation of a million dark thoughts in the pit of hell until it forms an entity that is more powerful than _all_ the demons that created it. It possess _enormous_ power, far above my own. If I had revealed myself to it, it would have killed me, and your brother would have died."

"Wait so you're saying that this thing, that was supposedly created from the _Internet_, is a dark swirling mass of demon thoughts capable of killing off demons _and _angels?" Dean felt something like ice slither down his back at the idea of a monster powerful enough to pull off such a task.

"The one who made those photographs you have was possessed. The creature needs a demonic portal to enter into the mortal world. The last time it came before this was in the Black Forests of Germany. It slaughtered over a dozen children in their beds, and disguised it as Plague. After the attacks, the local population began to grow fearful of evil spirits and built wards to and charms around their fields to protect themselves. This kept the demons from latching onto one of them to bring this thing again from hell. But the invention of your internet created _millions_ of opportunities for this entity to come back. The demons merely worked with what was offered to them."

"If this thing is really what you say it is Zeke, then how come there were no traces of sulfur anywhere? And how come _human _lore about it wearing a suit and being killable with iron was all true?"

"This thing is not a _demon _Dean, it is the essence of the _evil _that makes up demons. And iron is the most ancient of metals to protect against evils," Zeke stared at Dean with such a calm despite what he was talking about it, like it was a banal history fact in a dusty text book. "It is why humans lock up murders in iron shackles and behind iron jail cells, why you can deter angry ghosts with iron crowbars. I do not know why it wears a suit-"

"Alright man enough!" Dean snapped. "The 'Slender Man' is a bunch of demonic happy thoughts, and it can kill angels - my head hurts." Dean ran a hand on the back of his neck. "Why go after kids?" Dean turned to the angel lodging inside his brother. "Why is this thing fixated on slaughtering kids?"

"You would have to ask it Dean; and that is a task that I do not recommend you undertake." For the first time that night Zeke's voice had a hint of fear in it. "Every time the creature is thought about and goes unwarded against; it is able to regenerates grains of its consciousness-"

"Were you taking a leak back there when all this was going down man?" Dean jerked his head back to him. "The thing _has_ no consciousness anymore! I _killed_ it!-"

"You merely scattered its particles," Zeke's gaze stared through Sam's hazel eyes, thousands of years old, with knowledge that even made angels tremble. "It _will _return, maybe not in you or Sam's lifetimes, or another four centuries like before if you are lucky. But it will come back, it's only a matter of when."

Dean felt something gnaw at his stomach, a heavy sense of _fear_. He almost wished for the Internet Meme about the Slender Man to be just the simple salt and burn case that he had originally thought it to be; or even just a flat out lying piece of shit. Because fear was not something that sat well with a hunter; it meant that despite all their training something was able evade them back into the darkness, something that was smarter than them.

"You have done a good job Dean," Zeke watched him with unblinking eyes. "Sam thinks so too. He is greatly appreciative that even after all this time and all the skills he has honed and acquired, you are still there to have his back and save his life."

What the angel said might have sounded comforting if he wasn't so monotone about it. Dean had half a second to contemplate of all the reasons he wanted to call Zeke a liar before he found the angel's hard eyes replaced by the familiar, and dazed ones of his brother.

"Sam?"

Sam shook himself like he was dizzy. Dean reached out to touch his shoulder and he spooked like a scared horse.

"Whoa hey!" Dean held out his hands. "Take it easy man." Dean lowered his hand back to Sam's shoulder and heard him groan audibly, rubbing at his neck.

"You okay?" Dean asked concerned.

Sam turned his head slowly to Dean, each movement shooting ripples of pain through his neck. "How long was I out?"

"Bout three hours."

Sam grabbed and the side of his neck and rubbed it with the flat of his hand. "Man I had the _weirdest_ dream."

"Strippers and Jell-O?" Dean threw out.

"More like this _voice," _Sam returned. "It was _whispering_ to me-"

"So stalker strippers and Jell-O?" Dean laughed a moment. "Tell ya what man, enough of those dreams and," he shook himself like he had experienced something both painful and pleasurable. "you won't be able to pee in the morning."

"The voice knew my name Dean," Sam said and in the silhouetted darkness he saw his brother turn to him when he realized that he wasn't joking around. "It said it had a message for me, for both of us-"

"It's been a hell of a hunt Sammy," Dean said around a forced laugh. "And you took more than your fair share of a beating back there; you're bound to have a few Friday the 13th moments, alright?"

"Yeah, you're probably right," Sam agreed, he swiped a hand across his face, ending the movement on the bridge of his nose. "At least we have enough to fill an entire _volume_ on this thing in the Letters Archives."

"More like an entire _library_ Sammy," Dean corrected, watching as Sam leant back in his seat, muscles loosening as much as they were able too. "With cliff notes, and advanced readers copies."

The night blew past the car like a thick blanket, the air was cold enough that the windows were rolled up and the heater was turned on. Sam's neck hurt like a mofo, and he continued to rub at it trying to loosen the kinks. But he wasn't sure if that was _helping_ or _hurting_ the giant gashes encircling the flesh there, so he stopped. Finally he just gave up on trying to be comfortable and going back to sleep, and sat up, staring at the console like he was looking for something.

"Hey Dean," Sam watched Dean turn to him, and he waited until his brother had his full attention before he spoke again.

"You mind, if we uh, turn the radio back on?"

Dean looked at him cock eyed, like he'd grown a set of spider eyes in bright fuchsia above his own. "Since when do you like blaring music Sam?" He sized him up and down. "You sure you're feelin' okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam said. "Just, humor me?"

Dean shot him a rolled eyed look. "Alright, you big baby," He reached over and switched the dial on with an audible noise.

The deep voice of Bob Seeger filled the Impala's Interior:

"_You can study the ancients, you can learn every fact,  
You can follow the cycles that leave and come back-"_

"Better?" Dean threw out, his voice half mocking, half concerned.

Sam nodded, not giving into the baiting side of Dean's retort. He leant back against the headrest, eyes facing dead ahead at the thick white beams of the Impala's headlights cutting a swath of brightness through the night.

"What was the message?" Dean asked over the steering wheel, "From your creepy dream whispers? _Stay in School? Hugs not Drugs?_"

Sam turned to his brother, his eyes reflecting in the small amount of light that bounced upwards from the headlight, the rest of him cloaked in shadow.

"Wait."

"_How everything changes, it's been ever thus,  
One day you're a comet the next day you're dust,  
But you won't stop there, no you won't stop there."_

Dean's expression fell, where Sam's landed too, on the floor of the Impala, swathed in the blackness of night.

Neither one of them looked out into the darkness for the rest of ride._  
_

"…_There's always the future and you won't stop there."_

* * *

**xxxxxXxxxxx**

**End.**

The Legend of Slender Man was created in 2009 for the "Something Awful" forums: "Create Paranormal Images" contest. Its creator, going by the alias of "Victor Surge" created two warped photo shopped images of a tall skinny man in a suit. One depicted the man lurking in the shadows of a playground with octopus tentacles flailing up to the sun. The other depicted him behind a horde of children who were fleeing from him. This one had captions pertaining to how the children were being stalked by it, and how it compelled other people to kill these children.

Der Großmann is an actual Germanic folklore legend from the 1700's about a black faerie who kidnapped bad children and spirited them away to the dark forest.

All other accounts of the Slender Man were created by me here.

The song at the end was: "Won't Stop" by Bob Seeger.

Good Night and

Happy Halloween.

~Mystic


End file.
